Endless || HS ✔️

Chapter 24

I drove until my eyes could barely stay open that night, well early morning. The sun was beginning to rise and I settled in at a hotel, not my car. I immediately fell asleep and slept until that night.

When I woke up, I didn't want to think about what happened. Last night's events had haunted me. Kelly was dead. I told Harry I loved him. I told Harry to leave, Harry left me. It was unbelievable.

Harry didn't call. He didn't, and he knew that's how I wanted it to be right now. He was right, though. I made the mistake of what he did. I realized it, but I did nothing about it. I left it the way it was.

I think the thing that really got me wasn't her death, and that is really awful. It was that it felt like it happened again. My parents car crash and they died, and Kelly had a car crash and died. My parents were killed by a drunk driver, and Kelly was killed because she was a drunk driver. It was so horrible.

For that whole week, I stayed in Georgia. I slept in my car, wrote, and cried. That was all. I arrived back at WKU that Sunday, a week. I didn't go to Kelly's funeral. Funerals were horrible for me, and I just didn't go to them.

I went back to her apartment, though. It actually wasn't her apartment. She shared it with Jack, sometimes, but he had his own place. The weird thing was his name was on the apartment lease or whatever, so he still lived there, after Kelly's death.

I went to her apartment and Jason was there. Many shocking things happened, and they were terribly depressing.

Flashback

I walked up to Kelly's apartment and knocked. Then, the door opened and it wasn't a great sight.

Jason was standing there shirtless, bloodshot eyes and disheveled hair. He had cuts and bruises across his chest and face. They littered his body.

"What the hell happened to you?" I asked, so concerned.

"A fight," Jason slurred, and let me in.

He was drunk. He smelled like alcohol and I knew he was when I saw a bottle of vodka, half empty, laying on the couch.

"Jack," I said, walking closer to him.

"Don't fucking come near me! She's fucking dead!" He screamed, punching the wall.

I stopped in my tracks. This was crazy.

Jack started to sob, and then he slid down the wall and sat down.

"You don't know, do you?" He looked up at me with glossy eyes.

I shook my head.

"Kelly was pregnant with our baby. I don't know why she got fucking drunk. She was excited finding out she was pregnant, but nervous. I just don't know..." He drifted off.

What the fuck? No.

Tears started to form and threatened to fall out, but I didn't cry. I couldn't. She was pregnant?

He spoke again. "You miss a lot in a couple months when you don't have contact, don't ya? That's why you keep in touch because you never know what happens next." He sniffled.

He spoke again. "Harry flew off to LA Wednesday. He left right after the funeral. I guess he couldn't handle it."

"Did her family come?"

He nodded his head and looked up. "Every single fucking one of them. They blamed it all on me and said I was the biggest mistake she ever made."

I shook my head in response.

"Yeah, I know it's fucking wrong, but I see why she left them. She is nothing like her family. Total snobby rich bitches if you ask me.

I chuckled, "Yeah, she told me about them."

He chuckled and then it ceased. "She was really something." He said, looking out the window.

"You really loved her, didn't you?" I said, joining him on the floor.

"Yeah, I do." He said, looking at the floor. He opened his mouth to speak again. "I told her I was going to marry her one day. I made a promise to her that I would marry her one day, but I guess I'll still be waiting for that day to come for a while."

"It's possible to go on, no matter how impossible it seems, and that in time, the grief lessens. It may not go away completely, but after a while, it's not so overwhelming. That quote has stuck with me for a long time." I said.

"You've lost somebody important, haven't you?" He asked.

"Yeah, I have." I said, rewinding the memories with Peter.

"But you can't lose Harry. Not another one." He said, looking up at me.

"Jason, I-"

He cut me off. "You know what the last words were he said to me when he left to go to the airport?" He stared at me.

I shook my head and didn't really want to know.

He spoke. "He said, 'Tell Annie I love her,' and that was it. That was all that he said, and he just fucking left."

I looked down. He spoke again.

"I know you love him, Anne, and he loves you. You both are hopelessly in love with each other, but nothing ever happens when you two get the chance to talk. Nothing. One of you just leaves each other and doesn't talk for months. That's fucking ridiculous."

I pursued my lips and nodded. It was the truth. "I am in love with him. Hopeless love. I feel in love with him when we were together, then fell deeper in love with him in the time we were apart, and I can't change that." I said.

"Then fight for him. Fight for your love." Jason said, running his hand through his blond hair.

"I can't." I said, shaking my head.

"Why? You know, distance is scary, Anne. Fucking scary. The scariest thing about distance is that you don't know whether they'll miss you or forget you."

"I know, and that's what I'm afraid of. Time changes us."

"Then fucking fight for him. I know these will all be stories someday. And our pictures will become old photographs. We will all become somebody's mom and dad. But, right now, these moments are not stories. This is happening, Anne. This one moment when you know you're not a sad story. You're alive. You don't want to look back on life and think, 'I made the biggest mistake letting him go,'" He said.

He spoke again. "What you have to decided is how you want your life to be. If forever was ending, would this be how you'd want to have spent it? Listen, the truth is, nothing is guaranteed. You know that more than anybody, so please don't be afraid. You're alive, and have that chance to do it right now."

"Let me ask you this. Would you rather be just like this? Hiding in the shadows, wanting to do something about this shit, dwelling on it, thinking about how much you love him, but carried on with your life being miserable, or would you rather be with Harry? Harry, your happiness. Your joy. Your love."

Jason knew the answer to that. I would always choose Harry.

"Then, you figure out what you want with your life. And when you do, do something about it." He said, getting up and walking into his bedroom, leaving me there.

FLASHBACK OVER.

So, here I am, at the Los Angeles airport, waiting for a taxi, to do something about my life. To make a change in my life.